Melissa called the police the moment she stepped foot inside the house. Her hands shook as she spoke, trying to explain everything—the call, the note, the silence.
They arrived twenty minutes later. Three officers.
As she led them inside, her voice faltered.
Everything was… pristine.
The cushions were back in place. The framed pictures on the wall no longer showed her mother's face—just blank sceneries and faded stock portraits. The blanket Caro had kept on her wheelchair was folded neatly on the armrest. And the note on the coffee table? Gone.
Melissa stumbled forward. "Wait. No. It was here—this isn't how I left it—my mother lives here. She was here this morning!"
She rushed to her phone, opened her call log. Her mother's number was gone.
Not just deleted—gone.
She searched her contacts. No "Mom." No "Caro."
Nothing.
She tried to manually enter the number she remembered. It rang once, then an automated voice cut in:
"The number you are trying to reach does not exist."
Her breathing became shallow. "I just spoke to her—she was here, I swear—someone took her."
The officers looked at each other. One of them, a tall man with a clipped mustache and a quiet, almost clinical demeanor, stepped forward. His badge read Sergeant Hale.
He studied her carefully, then spoke in a low voice. "Look, I know how tough things can get. But sometimes... stress and alcohol, they don't mix well."
Before she could react, he gently took her hand as if to comfort her—and slipped a folded note into her palm.
Behind him, another officer lingered.
He looked young. Too young for the badge pinned to his chest. His name tag read Officer Riley. His face was pale, his mouth slightly open like he wanted to say something but couldn't. When their eyes met, Melissa saw it:
Fear. Real fear.
He knew something.
But just like that, the officers filed out of the house.
The patrol van hummed quietly as it rolled down the damp road, the tires hissing over the wet asphalt. Officer Riley gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles pale. The silence in the van was thick—almost suffocating.
Sergeant Hale sat beside him in the passenger seat, lost in his own thoughts, while another officer in the back seat leaned forward, frowning.
"Hey, Riley," the officer said, breaking the silence. His name tag read Corbin. Officer Joel Corbin, a practical man with little patience for nervous energy. "You've been jittery ever since we left that girl's house. What's going on with you?"
Riley's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror before settling back on the road. "I've seen this before," he said quietly. "A couple of years ago. Different part of town."
Corbin raised an eyebrow. "Seen what before?"
"This… same thing. A girl. Same age, maybe. She called the police, saying her mother had been taken, swore she just spoke to her. But when we got there… there was no sign anyone else had ever lived in the house."
Hale turned slightly toward him, his brow furrowed.
"And then it got worse," Riley continued, his voice shaking. "The next day, the girl came in screaming that her own photo had disappeared from her family album. A week later, she was gone too. No trace. Even the records in the system disappeared. Like someone… or something… was rewriting the past."
Corbin scoffed. "You believe that?"
"I tried not to," Riley said, his voice cracking. "But I can't forget her face. And I—I can't explain it, but walking into that house today… it felt the same. Like déjà vu. Like something is watching and wiping."
Corbin leaned back, silent now.
Then it happened.
In an instant, a blinding set of headlights erupted from the opposite lane, veering wildly toward them.
Riley screamed and jerked the wheel to the right. The van swerved off the road, hit a shallow ditch, flipped once, then crashed into a thick tree trunk with a sickening crunch.
Metal twisted. Glass shattered.
Silence.
Smoke curled from the crumpled hood.
A passing car screeched to a halt moments later. A man rushed out, calling emergency services.
Inside the wreckage, Officer Corbin's body hung limp in the back seat, motionless. Riley lay sprawled across the steering wheel, his chest unmoving.
Sergeant Hale was the only one still breathing—barely.
Blood dripped from his scalp. His leg was twisted unnaturally, and a deep gash ran across his forehead. His eyes fluttered open for just a second as the sound of sirens approached in the distance.
In that fleeting moment of awareness, he saw what looked like a child looking at the van from a distance.
Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but he saw the child smile before he turned and disappeared into the woods.
Then everything went black.